The Centre for Seldom Heard Voices is delighted to invite you to a special international guest lecture featuring social anthropological research on ‘pacing adult womanhood’ in precarious situations, here through the case study of young women’s situation in Kosovo. Dr Rozafa Berisha (Manchester/ Prishtina), currently visiting the social anthropology sister programme in the Social Science and Social Work department through our Erasmus+ K107 programme in partnership with University of Prishtina, Kosovo, will present her research on Thursday, 27th April, 15:00 to 17:00 in EB-206. All interested staff and students welcome! More details are available in this poster: Rozafa Berisha poster
Tagged / Centre for Seldom Heard Voices
British Journal of Social Work special issue on the voice and influence of people with lived experience
Follow the thoughts and reflections of the guest editorial team through our special issue blog series. The special issue of the British Journal of Social Work: Voice and Influence of people with lived experience is written, edited and reviewed by people with lived experience of social work. To date we have received 140 submissions across the three categories of academic papers, reflective pieces and creative artefacts. Follow our progress as we work toward publication in Spring 2023 via our blog series here
Invitation to the BCP Poverty Truth Commission launch
We would like to invite you to the Bournemouth, Christchurch ad Poole Poverty Truth Commission launch on Thursday 14th July 10-12.
The project so far
14 inspirational Community Commissioners (CCs) – those with lived experience of poverty locally – have agreed to become part of the Commission. They have been meeting together fortnightly since April to get to know each other, better understand the process, and tease out key themes common to their stories such as housing, mental health, rising costs, benefits. They have told the commission they already feel “less alone”, “really listened to” and “inspired”. They are now working together with the commission to design and prepare for the public launch event (10-12 on 14 July) where similar numbers of local leaders including myself (Mel Hughes) in my role as Academic lead for the BU PIER partnership will join them as Civic/Business Commissioners (CBCs) to work together to tackle the root causes of poverty over the coming year.
To book a place at the launch please register here
If you would like to discuss, please contact me directly mhughes@bournemouth.ac.uk
What’s New at WAN?
We are enjoying a busy second semester at the Women’s Academic Network, now in its 9th year. Here we provide a brief snapshot of what’s been happening and what’s coming up.
Following our excellent Research Masterclass on Focus Group Discussions with Dr Emma Pitchforth, University of Exeter and Professor Edwin van Teijlingen of FSS in Semester 1, our second Research Methodology Masterclass workshop will be held on May 25. This time we will be covering Psychosocial Visual Methodologies, including learning about Social Dreaming techniques. Workshop facilitation will be offered by Dr Lita Crociani-Windland, University West of England. Lita is a British Psychoanalytic Council Scholar and Director of the UWE Centre for Social Dreaming and an expert is her field. Register with WAN.
More Semester 2 events:
We have enjoyed two highly successful, open-to-all webinars recently.
On April 29, Pro-Chancellor Dr Sue Sutherland OBE introduced three eminent, media profiled, Independent Sage speakers, Professor Susan Michie, Professor Christina Pagel (UCL) and Dr Deepti Gurdasani (Queen Mary) for a powerful, punchy and candid discussion on the Online harassment and abuse of female scientists in the public sphere
On March 17 the BU Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Vinney, opened Women’s International Day at WAN with this year’s prestigious speaker, Jess Phillips, Labour Party MP for the constituency of Birmingham Yardley and Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding. This was a hugely powerful and entertaining recorded session with one of the UK’s most authentic, audacious, witty and eloquent politicians speaking on the topic of ‘Another Year of Violence Towards Women and Girls!’
What else is going on?
The ever-popular WAN Writing Retreat is being held on July 11. Please register your interest.
WAN takes its responsibilities to support the career profiles of our women colleagues very seriously. Our annual Writing Retreat is a great opportunity to get down to some seriously inspired writing in a supported environment where your writing experience is facilitated by experienced and prolific women scholars.
Coming up: WAN speaker/panel series: ‘Gilead Now? Resisting the March of Misogyny’. We are in the process of planning a number of events under our rolling new series that draws on Margaret Atwood’s dystopic Handmaid vision to explore reminiscent manifestations of women’s oppression emerging in contemporary societies.
Not yet a WAN member?
All women academic/PGR across any academic discipline can join WAN.
For more information and to register interest in events please contact:
Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree: scrabtree@bournemouth.ac.uk
Join the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices February Seminar

Adult social care in the UK denotes a diverse range of provisions for people over 18 with chronic illness, mental illness, physical disabilities or frailties in older age. Social care is largely coordinated by local government and since the 1990s there has been a marked growth in community-based social care services that are delivered to people in their homes. Unlike the National Health Service (NHS), social care provision is highly residual, and has always relied heavily on the cooperation of carers (family members and friends of people using social care services) in order to run smoothly.
This presentation will examine the experiences of carers during the Covid-19 pandemic 2020-21. It will draw on qualitative data from a study of waged and unwaged caring labour provided to people at home during lockdowns and social distancing in BCP and Dorset, which incorporated 14 in depth interviews with carers. It will be shown that the closure of health and welfare services left carers with significant additional caring work and obligations, yet also unable to access support networks. Carers’ experiences of confinement, abandonment and isolation will be examined alongside the challenges they confronted in navigating health and welfare systems and finding out about entitlement to help. It will be argued that these experiences are a particularly acute iteration of a more general pattern whereby the work performed by carers is taken for granted and made invisible. The presentation will conclude by reflecting on why it is that carers are so poorly supported in the contemporary UK social care system, despite being crucial to it.
We look forward to seeing you at the seminar
Centre for Seldom Heard Voices
Announcing Bespoke Research Masterclasses – Women’s Academic Network
Dear women academics and PGR at Bournemouth University, we would like to inform you that the Women’s Academic Network (WAN) is offering two bespoke, qualitative Research Masterclasses for our members this academic year. We believe these Masterclasses will be helpful to, not only seasoned female academics wishing to polish up their methodological toolkits, but also of particular benefit to ECR and PGR colleagues, and others who are beginning to explore and develop methodologies expertise.
The first of our Masterclasses WAN Masterclass Focus Group Research will be held on November 10, 13.00-16.00 in BG-302 (the new Bournemouth Gateway Building on Lansdowne). This session will be facilitated by Dr Emma Pitchforth, Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow in Primary Care at the University of Exeter and our own Professor Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research.
Early announcement of second event. This will be an all-day Masterclass workshop on Psychosocial Visual Methods, to be held on 25 May 9.30-4.30, facilitated by Dr Lita Crociani-Windland, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Psycho-Social Studies at University of West of England (UWE), Bristol. Limited spaces. Look out for further announcements.
WAN events:
We would like to remind anyone interested in attending these Masterclasses that while you do need to be a member of WAN to access this event, joining WAN is free, easy and beneficial to women scholars at our institution as well as being a unique initiative supported by UET. We have been described as ‘the most collegial network in BU’ for good reason. Join us and find out more about what we do to help our women colleagues.
WAN Convenors are:
Dr Joanne Mayoh
Dr Abier Hamidi
Dr Melsia Tomlin-Kraftner
Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
For more information on Masterclass bookings and WAN, please email:
Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree scrabtree@bournemouth.ac.uk
Join us at our first Lunchtime Seminar this October.

Join us at our first Lunchtime Seminar this October. Email jonesc@bournemouth.ac.uk for the online link.
Octobers Seminar – 12:00-13:00 on 27th October
Ethnographic research with offenders has become increasingly difficult to carry out in the UK and internationally. Requirements of institutional review boards (IRB) are stringent. Research that involves fieldwork in high-risk settings is often turned down, which in effect silences the voices of vulnerable and marginalised populations within them. Furthermore, witnessing and recording crimes that are not known to the police is risky and could put the researcher in a position where they are legally obligated to give up the information. Ethnography with criminals may also require elements of covert observation in order to be successful and protect the safety of both the researcher and the researched. Covert research is especially difficult to get approved and is frowned upon for being deceptive. It can, however, benefit participants by illuminating hidden injustices, whilst leading to proposals for progressive policy change. This talk draws upon data from a 5-year semi-covert ethnography of the illicit drug trade in a city in England. It outlines the ethical and methodological challenges of conducting ethnographic research on hard-to-reach criminal groups.
Centre for Seldom heard Voices – online lunchtime seminar series

Join us at our first Lunchtime Seminar this October. Email jonesc@bournemouth.ac.uk for the online link.
Octobers Seminar – 12:00-13:00 on 27th October
Ethnographic research with offenders has become increasingly difficult to carry out in the UK and internationally. Requirements of institutional review boards (IRB) are stringent. Research that involves fieldwork in high-risk settings is often turned down, which in effect silences the voices of vulnerable and marginalised populations within them. Furthermore, witnessing and recording crimes that are not known to the police is risky and could put the researcher in a position where they are legally obligated to give up the information. Ethnography with criminals may also require elements of covert observation in order to be successful and protect the safety of both the researcher and the researched. Covert research is especially difficult to get approved and is frowned upon for being deceptive. It can, however, benefit participants by illuminating hidden injustices, whilst leading to proposals for progressive policy change. This talk draws upon data from a 5-year semi-covert ethnography of the illicit drug trade in a city in England. It outlines the ethical and methodological challenges of conducting ethnographic research on hard-to-reach criminal groups.
Join the event: Care and support at home in the time of Covid
An event exploring the experiences of volunteers, carers and care workers during the Covid-19 pandemic in BCP and Dorset
The Covid-19 pandemic has concentrated much care and support within peoples homes. The closure of schools, day centres, shops and non-essential services during lockdowns, alongside prohibitions on household mixing, have meant that caring work has been much more spatially concentrated and contained within households than in normal times.
This has placed increasing demands on carers and home care workers. It has also expanded initiatives of volunteer-provided support to people at home. This event presents the early findings of a research project exploring the activities and experiences of carers, care workers and volunteers in Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset over the past 18 months. It also includes a round table discussion in which experts and leaders from the voluntary and community sector, carers’ groups, home care providers and local government will reflect on current and future challenges for their respective fields, and the role of academic research in addressing these.
Date
Wed, 8 September 2021
Time
13:00 – 15:30 BST
Price
This event is free and open to all. Book your place at Care and support at home in the time of Covid Tickets, Wed 8 Sep 2021 at 13:00 | Eventbrite
Location
Join Zoom Meeting
https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/85863758884?pwd=S05FYWlzWUFoWWRpS2lnWnk0alZPZz09
Meeting ID: 858 6375 8884
Passcode: i98CDv8@
Questions
For further information on this event please contact
Dr Rosie Read, email: rread@bournemouth.ac.uk
Care and support at home in the time of Covid
An event exploring the experiences of volunteers, carers and care workers during the Covid-19 pandemic in BCP and Dorset.
About this event:
The Covid-19 pandemic has concentrated much care and support within peoples homes. The closure of schools, day centres, shops and non-essential services during lockdowns, alongside prohibitions on household mixing, have meant that caring work has been much more spatially concentrated and contained within households than in normal times.
This has placed increasing demands on carers and home care workers. It has also expanded initiatives of volunteer-provided support to people at home. This event presents the early findings of a research project exploring the activities and experiences of carers, care workers and volunteers in Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset over the past 18 months. It also includes a round table discussion in which experts and leaders from the voluntary and community sector, carers’ groups, home care providers and local government will reflect on current and future challenges for their respective fields, and the role of academic research in addressing these.
Event details:
- Wed, 8 September 2021
- 13:00 – 15:30
- Online event
- This event is free and open to all
- To get your free ticket, please register via Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/care-and-support-at-home-in-the-time-of-covid-tickets-165963339817
For further information on this event please contact Dr Rosie Read, email: rread@bournemouth.ac.uk
This online event will be recorded. For details in respect of any recording and how it will be made available, please contact the organiser. If you do not want to appear in any recording please notify the host, keep your camera and audio off throughout the event and avoid using any chat function during the event (we will do our best to respond to any questions you have through other channels). For further information, please refer to our privacy notice https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/governance/access-information/data-protection-privacy/general-enquiries-public-events-privacy-notice [RA1]
The Women’s Academic Network Writing Retreats return!
Interrupted by the pandemic for a year and much missed, the Women’s Academic Network, are back in style to offer their popular, off campus Writing Retreats on July 5, 9.00-5.00.
Places are limited to WAN members, but the good news is that we still have places
This year we are trying out a new venue, new to WAN but not BU, this being the Captain’s Club Hotel, Wick Ferry, Christchurch (https://www.captainsclubhotel.com), where we have booked a large room and adjoining outdoor terrace.Parking, refreshments and buffet lunch included.
The programme
- The WritingRetreat day begins at 9.00 and ends at 17.00
- 1 hour workshop on productive writing tips facilitated by convenors to get revved up into writing mode
- Concentrated individual/small team writing time.
- Lunchtime: buffet lunch, networking/socialising/riverside walk
- Concentrated individual/small team writing time.
- Concluding the day and feedback
Booking
To join us on this splendid day, we ask for 3 commitments from our participants:
- Feedback on the Writing Retreat Day for inclusion in WAN reports (anonymised)
- Follow-up feedback on the results and outcome of your academic writing endeavours for WAN reports to UET (anonymised).
- If asked, participation in future WAN research seminars based on your research and publications (definitely not anonymised!)
To book, please email Professor Sara Ashencaen Crabtree: scrabtree@bournemouth.ac.uk) to express your interest in participating.
Not yet a WAN member but want to be?
WAN is a non-corporate nexus of women academics and PGR at BU.
Email Sara (above) to express your interest for information. Once you join, WAN resources like the Retreat are available to you.
Reflecting on ‘Doing Diversity Better: Interrogating ethnic and gender equality among BAME academics in HE’ Q&A Panel Event, April 22.
Last week, the Women’s Academic Network (WAN) hosted an extremely powerful, thought provoking and very well attended, public engagement Q&A Panel discussion that brought together four eminent women scholars-of-colour from different minoritised ethnic groups, as well as a representative from the Bournemouth University Student Union (SUBU), to discuss one of the most urgent and critical issues of social justice facing HE today.
Our esteemed panellists were:
Professor Kalwant Bhopal, Professor of Education and Social Justice, Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Education, University of Birmingham.
Professor Ann Phoenix, Professor of Psychosocial Studies, at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education.
Dr Samantha Iwowo, Programme Leader of MA Directing, Film and TV at BU.
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya, Professor of Sociology at the Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London
Ms Chiko Bwalya, Education Vice President of SUBU.
All our panellists work within the broad areas of racialisation/ethnicisation and brought their own particular research expertise, intellectual and experiential understandings to a grounded, candid and hugely resonant discussion of diversity in contemporary HE.
The VC, Professor John Vinney, opened the event with a most engaged and thoughtful address that skilfully foregrounded the panel discussion. All the speaker contributions were premised on the demographic evidence and perception that the UK academy is characterised by a homogeneity that fails to reflect social diversity, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender and class. Moreover, the alarming lack of representation among minoritised ethnic groups in HE not only exemplifies a dereliction of social justice but is demonstrably counterproductive to the academy across every area of scholarly endeavour, including inclusive pedagogy.
The resulting discussion was varied and broad in scope, rich in concept, and profoundly analytical, where both the Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter under AdvanceHE were scrutinised by Professor Kalwant in reference to authenticity, equality and effectiveness. Intersectional differences and epistemic violence formed the basis of Professor Phoenix’s discussion, while Dr Iwowo closely considered decolonisation of curricula. Professor Bhattacharyya explored the vexed question of ‘What can we do when we are told there is no racism?’; and this in turn was followed by a talk from the youngest but no less impressive speaker, Ms Bwalya, on the impact on these deficiencies on the student experience.
Judging from the popularity of the event, the high level of engagement, the feedback and questions from a respectful but riveted audience this was not only a very timely occasion but one that was seen to make a hugely important contribution to HE debates on diversity. We were delighted that not only were so many key members of UET and BU present, but that this event had a very wide reach attracting an audience from right across the HE sector and the interested lay public as well. Through events such as these, WAN is additionally showing that the network has come-of-age in engaging with some of the most pressing agendas preoccupying HE today.
Accordingly, we would like to extend our deepest thanks and appreciation to all our panellists with a special acknowledgement to Dr Iwowo and Ms Bwayla for acting as the internal BU panellists, along with Professor Phoenix who is a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. We would like to very warmly thank the VC and all others members of UET for their support of WAN and their strong encouragement of the event, which was recognised as a truly excellent contribution to diversity and inclusion at BU. A final thanks to our great support team in IT, Communications, Events & Conferences for all their help in making this fantastic event happen.
Finally, if unfortunately, you missed the event but would like to learn more about it, please contact me for more information on scrabtree@bournemouth.ac.uk
‘Doing Diversity Better: Interrogating ethnic and gender equality among BAME academics in HE’ April 22 14.00-16.00
The Women’s Academic Network (WAN) at BU are delighted to host this powerful and timely public engagement, open-to-all, Q&A Panel Discussion on one of the most important and urgent issues facing Higher Education (HE) in the UK today.

The Vice Chancellor, Professor John Vinney, will formally open the event which brings together four hugely eminent women academics of-colour, as well as a representative from the Bournemouth University Student Union (SUBU), who are all working within the broad areas of racialisation/ethnicisation and social inequalities. Each panellist will bring their own particular research expertise together with intellectual and experiential understandings to a grounded, candid and in-depth discussion of diversity in contemporary HE.
For more details and registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/womens-academic-network-bournemouth-university-doing-diversity-better-tickets-146743055429
The panel context
UK HE is characterised by a homogeneity that fails to reflect social diversity, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender and social class. These issues need to be located within a complex terrain of interwoven, intersectional experiences. The handy portmanteau term: ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) can also unhelpfully work to subsume entire groups who are otherwise subject to different levels of discrimination that may thereby remain less visible and therefore neglected. For example, a UCU 2019 report recorded that of a total number of professors in the UK, those self-identifying as ‘Black’ numbered just 85 individuals, and of these a mere 25 were women (Rollock 2019). While recent HESA (2020) data confirms that less than 1% of UK professors self-identify as Black. Unsurprisingly, Mizra (2019, p. 39) refers with horror to the overwhelming ‘hideous’ whiteness of academia. This alarming lack of representation among minority ethnic groups in HE not only exemplifies a dereliction of social justice but is demonstrably counterproductive to the academy across every area of scholarly endeavour, including inclusive pedagogy. The Race Equality Charter under AdvanceHE offers a valuable tool towards remedial action, but without direct debate, will towards and strategies for root-and-branch sector change, such charters are unlikely to create the necessary traction.
Our Panellists:
Professor Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice Professor of Education and Social Justice Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Education, University of Birmingham
Professor Ann Phoenix is Professor of Psychosocial Studies, at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education
Dr Samantha Iwowo is the Programme Leader of MA Directing, Film and TV at BU.
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya is Professor of Sociology at the Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London
Ms Chiko Bwalya is the Education Vice President of SUBU.
We in WAN look forward to welcoming you.
Colleagues – please share among your networks. Students welcome
‘Doing Diversity Better: Interrogating ethnic and gender equality among BAME academics in HE’ April 22 14.00-16.00
The Women’s Academic Network (WAN) at BU are delighted to host this powerful and timely public engagement, open-to-all, Q&A Panel Discussion on one of the most important and urgent issues facing Higher Education (HE) in the UK today.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor John Vinney, will formally open the event which brings together four hugely eminent women academics of-colour, as well as a representative from the Bournemouth University Student Union (SUBU), who are all working within the broad areas of racialisation/ethnicisation and social inequalities. Each panellist will bring their own particular research expertise together with intellectual and experiential understandings to a grounded, candid and in-depth discussion of diversity in contemporary HE.
For more details and registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/womens-academic-network-bournemouth-university-doing-diversity-better-tickets-146743055429
The panel context
UK HE is characterised by a homogeneity that fails to reflect social diversity, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender and social class. These issues need to be located within a complex terrain of interwoven, intersectional experiences. The handy portmanteau term: ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) can also unhelpfully work to subsume entire groups who are otherwise subject to different levels of discrimination that may thereby remain less visible and therefore neglected. For example, a UCU 2019 report recorded that of a total number of professors in the UK, those self-identifying as ‘Black’ numbered just 85 individuals, and of these a mere 25 were women (Rollock 2019). While recent HESA (2020) data confirms that less than 1% of UK professors self-identify as Black. Unsurprisingly, Mizra (2019, p. 39) refers with horror to the overwhelming ‘hideous’ whiteness of academia. This alarming lack of representation among minority ethnic groups in HE not only exemplifies a dereliction of social justice but is demonstrably counterproductive to the academy across every area of scholarly endeavour, including inclusive pedagogy. The Race Equality Charter under AdvanceHE offers a valuable tool towards remedial action, but without direct debate, will towards and strategies for root-and-branch sector change, such charters are unlikely to create the necessary traction.
Our Panellists:
Professor Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice Professor of Education and Social Justice Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Education, University of Birmingham
Professor Ann Phoenix is Professor of Psychosocial Studies, at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education
Dr Samantha Iwowo is the Programme Leader of MA Directing, Film and TV at BU.
Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya is Professor of Sociology at the Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London
Ms Chiko Bwalya is the Education Vice President of SUBU.
We in WAN look forward to welcoming you.
Colleagues – please share among your networks. Students welcome
Dealing with the past in the post-Yugoslav space – Reflections on a conference
The EU-funded Reconciliation Network of civil society organisations of the Western Balkans, known as RECOM, in conjunction with the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, on 21st and 22nd of December 2020, organised and ran the 13th Forum for Transitional Justice online. In three panels, the invited academic experts and practitioners discussed the state of the process of dealing with the past in the post-Yugoslav space. They assessed and explored the state of transitional justice, memorialization and missing persons in the wider region.
Giulia Levi is a doctoral candidate at Bournemouth University and member of the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices: Marginalisation and Societal Integration at BU. Based on her practice experience with civil society initiatives working towards peace building in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2005, she is currently completing a comparative, VC-funded PhD project called ‘Bridging societal divisions in post-Brexit referendum UK, learning from Bosnia’. This article was originally published on the website of the AHRC project Changing the Story that investigates how the arts, heritage and human rights education can support youth-centred approaches to civil society building in post-conflict settings across the world.
What about the survivors? The importance of a victim-centred approach to transitional justice in the Western Balkans – Reflections on a conference
Since the end of the Yugoslav succession wars of the 1990s, people living in the former Yugoslav countries have been dealing with the consequences of wartime violence and the societal divisions this caused. The path of transitional justice has proven difficult and discontinuous, yet it has had a real impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. Survivors’ families and associations, who invested the most emotional labour in the process, however, have often felt left out of the official transitional justice processes and, today, often find themselves disappointed, disillusioned, and exhausted. It is generally held that a lack of sufficiently addressing the needs and grievances of survivors of massive human rights violations inhibits chances for lasting peace and reconciliation between the previously warring parties. Open questions include whether there can be a universal approach to dealing with the past and with survivors’ needs or whether, rather, Transitional Justice can and should be tailored to every individual’s needs. However, would the latter even be realistic, given the challenging complexities at stake? Furthermore, would any kind of justice delivery sufficiently satisfy those who have suffered so much because of the war; or what justice needs, or even other needs, have to be addressed for peace building to have a genuine chance? One commentator at the conference suggested that, in order to build the future of the post-Yugoslav countries, it might be better to focus on the respective societies as a whole rather than on individual grievances. The discussions during the conference revolved around these types of complex questions. Most of the experts and practitioners present highlighted, through insights from their personal research or based on first-hand experience, the importance of taking individual survivors’ needs into account while understanding these as being interconnected with the situation in their wider, respective societies.
Contrary to other countries like South Africa or Rwanda, which established truth commissions to deal with the crimes of the past, the region of former Yugoslavia has relied mainly on retributive justice. This model consists of a top-down approach, punishing perpetrators through trials. Despite the important role played by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in establishing a record of what happened during the war, scholars and practitioners have long pointed to the limitations of formal tribunals as tools of delivering reconciliation. As noted during the conference, retributive justice has often been blamed for “overpromising and underdelivering”, while promoting normative discourses that can contrast with the lived realities of people. High sounding principles of ‘peace’, ‘justice’ and ‘reconciliation’, despite seemingly universal, might carry specific meanings for people on the ground. Policies that promote their implementation have often resulted in unintended consequences such as further dividing ethnic communities and being detrimental to, rather than supportive of, survivors’ causes[1].
The formation of the Regional Commission (RECOM) constituted an attempt to propose an alternative approach to dealing with the past. In 2005, three human rights organizations based in Belgrade, Sarajevo and Zagreb and opposed to the top-down approach of foreign organizations and domestic political institutions, promoted a platform with the aim of involving survivors’ organizations more actively in shaping efforts towards truth finding and dealing with the past. At the same time, due to the regional nature of the Yugoslav wars, the RECOM founders believed that the formal participation of all the national governments in the region was a prerequisite for establishing the facts of the war and for preventing a manipulation of the 1990s conflicts for political gains. Today, RECOM includes over 2,000 organizations and individuals of the wider Western Balkan region, representing an unprecedented effort towards inclusiveness and local ownership. From 2007 to 2011, RECOM carried out 127 consultations throughout the seven former Yugoslav countries, which involved civil society organizations to discuss the establishment of a Regional Commission aimed at ascertaining the facts about the war crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001. Despite this, the reluctance of almost all involved national governments to participate, formally and continuously, in this initiative, and the unwillingness of EU member states to play a stronger role in the process, have proven obstacles that prevented RECOM to fully achieving its aims.
All national governments in the wider region still display a lack of political will to engage in collaborative efforts of building a shared vision of the past. Instead, the narratives of the past, as these are constructed, expressed and performed across the region, especially during public commemorative events, continue to be of an exclusionary, ethno-nationalist character. The conference speakers reflected on the contemporary ‘memory industry’ in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo. They found that political leaders still politicise survivors’ experiences, often attributing value to them only if they can support the respective political rhetoric. For example, Lejla Gačanica addressed the case of the town of Srebrenica, where the Bosnian Serb political leaders still refuse to acknowledge the extent of the crime committed in July 1995 against the Bosnian Muslim population. This case exemplified the ways in which manipulation and outright denial of established facts of war still heavily impact on the everyday life of ordinary citizens who suffered from these. Vjollca Krasniqi for Kosovo and Sabina Čehajić-Clancy for Bosnia emphasised the role of civil society organizations in fighting denial and breaking homogeneous narratives of the past by nurturing the public space for diverse experiences and storytelling. The collection and presentation of personal stories, with their uniqueness, for example through arts or media events, can help to change the ways in which the ‘Other’ is imagined.

Srebrenica. Credit: Giulia Levi, 2018.
If finding space for individual narratives to emerge can help defy solidified versions of the past, the search for missing persons is a fundamental step in giving dignity to individual survivors rather than treating them just as numbers in political struggles. Manfred Nowak, Expert Member of the UN Working Group on Involuntary or Enforced Disappearances during the war, reminded the audience that, still today, “the persistence of missing persons represents one of the main obstacles for people to come together and trust each other”. The uncertainty about somebody’s loved ones’ whereabouts and the circumstances of the death of each individual effectively undermines relations between communities and makes sustainable peace most difficult to achieve. Nataša Kandić, director of the Humanitarian Law Centre, advocated for the issue of missing persons to be treated not just as a humanitarian, but a political issue. This is because any progress in this work strongly depends on the political will of the involved nation-states to lead by example and share information on the location of mass graves and individual gravesites. At the same time, she insisted that “it is extremely important to look at each individual victim and find all the names, not numbers, but names. We have to publish the data on the disappearances and just by doing that we can cast light on what happened, and we can hope that citizens who have information will feel confident to come forward”. Listening to individual stories, whether of former victims, perpetrators or witnesses of war crimes is thus paramount to establishing the truth.
If compared with other contexts where mass disappearances took place like Iraq, Argentina or Sri Lanka, the massive work done in former Yugoslavia by the International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP) in locating mass graves and identifying remains, represents a success story. Nevertheless, 10,170 persons are still missing across the region. The speakers underlined how state authorities have done too little in the last years to move the work required forward. With time passing and the soil gradually mutating, it is increasingly difficult to locate the remaining burial sites, leaving surviving families’ questions about the circumstances in which their loved ones died forever unanswered.

Lake Perucac, border between Bosnia and Serbia and site of exhumation of victims’ remains from the Bosnian and the Kosovo wars. Credit: Giulia Levi.
The issue of missing persons, in particular, shows how the fate of every single individual burdens not only the survivors’ families, but entire societies. Focusing attention on the nexus between survivors’ needs and societal problems could help counterbalance the appeal that nationalism exerts on people, who feel disappointed and abandoned, as Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers demonstrated for her ethnographic Kosovar case studies. She argued that disenfranchised people might look for a sense of security in solidified narratives, which can result in further ethnic segregation and, where discontent persists, be passed on across the generations. Far from being just a concern of the post-Yugoslav area, nationalist ideologies work as messianistic narratives for those who are on the losing end, a ‘shield’ that is thought to protect against perceived external threats. Therefore, as Slađana Lazić elaborated, transitional justice should take a more ‘transformative’ turn, widening its scope, beyond criminal justice, to socio-economic injustices. Such focus would allow “find[ing] a different policy entry point to link, [for example,] wartime rape and children born out of rape and the present-day problem of femicide and gender-based violence”. Empirical research insights such as these supported the conference’s main finding that sustainable change can only arise from taking the needs of individual survivors into account while, at the same time, addressing structural inequalities that are important for the whole society.
The panelists and moderators of the discussions at the Forum were UN experts Manfred Nowak, Thomas Osorio and Ivan Jovanović; EC expert David Hudson; academics Sabina Čehajić, Vjollca Krasniqi, Slađana Lazić, Lejla Gačanica, Sven Milekić, Jelena Đureinović, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Lea David; as well as former Head of the Commission on Detainees and Missing Persons of the Republic of Croatia, Ivan Grujić; and RECOM Reconciliation Network members Žarko Puhovski, Tea Gorjanc Prelević and Nataša Kandić. The conference over two days was divided into three panel discussions: 1) Review of Transitional Justice – Opportunities; 2) Remembrance Policies and Victim Commemoration; and 3) The Issue of Missing Persons – The Priority of Regional Cooperation.
[1] Dragović-Soso, Gordy, 2010; Subotić, 2015; Baker, Obradović-Wochnik, 2016; Hughes, Kostovicova 2019.